THE BUZZ: Adam Badowski, Managing Director of Witcher 2 developer CD Projekt, has said that the rumored used game lockout feature for the next Xbox, “can be a bad thing.”

The development team feels that blocking used sales could damage customer relationships and trust, and the best way to increase sales is to improve quality.

“We are losing money not because of pirates; we are losing money because people decided not to buy our game,” he told Eurogamer. ”We should invest more power to upgrade and polish our products and convince players to keep our products, to be with us, to understand our needs – because we are an independent developer, we have to prevent lay-offs, we need to grow up and have the power to create new games.”

“Most hardcore and hardware solutions will be OK for short periods, but a strong relationship with players, with customers, can change the situation. And for us, this is a better way,” he added.

EGM’s TAKE: We agree with everything said here. Developers who create a bond with their fans make more than enough from sales. Just look at Minecraft, probably one of the most pirated games ever and yet it’s still sold four million copies. Of course you’d be delusional to say that piracy isn’t an issue, it still costs developers money that they could be using to improve their games further. But piracy and selling second-hand copies isn’t the same thing. This is one battle that will rage on for a very long time to come and no one person is going to fix the issue, if anyone even has the power to stop it.

Do you agree with Badowski’s outlook on piracy? Leave your comments below.

Matthew Bennett finally got his big break with EGM three years ago, following years of volunteer work for various sites. An ability to go many hours without sleep and a quick wit make him ideal for his role as associate editor at EGMNOW.com. He often thinks back to the days when the very idea of this career seemed like nothing but an impossible dream. Follow him on Twitter @mattyjb89. Meet the rest of the crew.